Sunday, September 29, 2013

Oh disobedience - you have a clearattraction when supposed leadershipbecomes unmoored and rudderless. The sphereis then transformed to danger, where a triponce thought benign becomes becalmed, betrayedby guidance lost to depths of the most sheerfutility, where will becomes a frayedand tattered tendon so that strength is meresurvival, step to step and play to play.So what shall we conspire? If we still fearreprisal then our courage goes astray when we do need it most, when we should gearourselves for an assassination, tossed by latent doubts when we should not be crossed.

"In particular, spoilers have three pernicious effects. First, they make
it difficult for leaders to lead. If any deal that a leader brings back
from negotiations is suspect precisely because it is a deal, and if any
leader who brings back such a deal is likely to be accused of treason by
a significant share of his base, then it will be hard for a leader
either to accept or deliver on a compromise — exactly the kind of
problem that has weakened House speaker John Boehner in recent years."

This is why we're here - a couple of years ago, Boehner made a deal with President Obama that might have actually addressed the fiscal problems the country currently has, and Republicans rejected it. And ever since, any "Grand Deal" has had no chance.

And now we have another shutdown for the sake of ideology.

When in doubt, blame the Republicans. Right now, at least, it's all their fault.

This increasing lack of connection to political reality may
result in part from classic denial. They are unwilling to accept that
their extremist ideological views are massively unpopular with an
increasingly progressive electorate.

Last election they simply refused to believe that all of those
Hispanics, African Americans, women and young people would come to the
polls. Even their pollsters refused to believe that the electorate was
changing. They were actually stunned that they lost.

......
The Tea Party Republicans appear to have abandoned hope that they can
achieve their goals through the established -- democratic -- political
process. After all, virtually all of their demands are extremely
unpopular with the broader electorate and they overwhelmingly lost the
last election.

So they have resorted to the tactic of choice for small
extremist minorities: hostage-taking. They are threatening to blow up
the economy if they don't get their way.

And that is precisely why the president and Democrats in
Congress are so clear that they will not cede to GOP demands. If
Democrats were to allow hostage-taking to work, GOP extremists would try
the same tactic again and again. There would be no end to the
hostage-taking in order to force the majority of Americans to agree to
the positions of a small minority that have been rejected in democratic
elections.

"If outsiders have failed to grasp the motivations of the House
Republicans, puzzling at their odd redoubling of ideological fervor
since November, they have likewise mistaken Obama. Everything I have
seen from Obama suggests he understands that he cannot repeat his
blunder of 2011, when he mistook the GOP’s debt-ceiling threat for an
invitation to engage in normal fiscal bargaining.'

.....

"Obama’s incentive structure is simple, then: Allowing Republicans
to default on the debt now is better than trading something that allows
them to threaten it later. His best option is to refuse to negotiate
the debt ceiling and have the House raise it before October 17. His next
best option is to refuse to negotiate the debt ceiling, allow default,
and never have to go through it again. Bargaining merely postpones, and
worsens, the next default crisis. No negotiated debt-ceiling price is
small enough to be acceptable. There is therefore no circumstance under
which bargaining for a debt-ceiling hike makes sense, even if the
alternative is certain default.

That is a frightening reality, made all the more frightening by
two additional factors. The first is that Republicans don’t believe
Obama’s insistence that he won’t negotiate."

I don't think he will either. So the Republicans are driving us toward potential disaster.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

The Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter (LRO) has been taking pictures of humankind's marks on the moon, in the form of landers, crash-landers, manned missions, rover tracks, and stuff like that. It's kinda cool to see the monuments to our inquiring minds and engineering accomplishments, which will exist for many, many thousands of years - perhaps longer than our own existence as a species on this orb. (Hope not, but it's possible.)

Sports Illustrated's Swim Daily has a video of the cute-beyond-imagining Nina Agdal (who when she models swimwear and lingerie becomes hot-beyond-dreams) discussing her life and showing off her apartment in New York.

C. Kevin Boyce, a paleobotanist and associate professor in Stanford
University’s Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, looks
at links between ancient plants and today's ecosystems.

David Lobell is an agricultural
ecologist and associate professor at Stanford who has investigated the
impact of climate change on crop production and food security around the
world.

Angela Duckworth is a research psychologist at the University of
Pennsylvania who is credited with helping to transform our understanding
of what roles self-control and grit play in educational achievement.

"Every year, the IAEA makes low and high projections of global nuclear
power generating capacity: this year's low projection indicates 17 per
cent growth in world total nuclear power capacity by 2030, while the
high projection suggests a 94 per cent growth, i.e. nearly a doubling in
global generation capacity. In other words, growth in nuclear power
following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident is expected to
continue, however at a rate lower than estimated prior to the accident."

So, barring anything else unexpected (which would be unlikely), there should still be more nuclear energy in the future. And I think in places that need it most and which can afford it the easiest. And if the U.S. put a tax on carbon emissions, we could afford more clean energy too.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

I've added a woman to my list of women I'd like to see nude, but very likely won't ever (first authored in 2010, but it hasn't changed much since). The new addition is "Breaking Bad" acdtor Aaron Paul's California girl wife Lauren Parsekian. She's sleek and lovely, and she's also a good person who has co-headed a nationwide campaign to try and convince young girls to be kinder to one another, because the opposite (bullying in many different forms) can lead to tragedy.

So she's sexy and a good person. Aaron's got a great wife there. I expect he's enjoying all the newlywed benefits of her sexiness and goodness. (At least I hope so.)

Wedding dress and bikini (the only bikini picture I could find - she can't REALLY be from California!) In the latter, her husband is casually embracing his territory.

The Guardian UK has a dispiriting article about the state of nuclear energy in the United States. The interesting thing is, though, that nuclear energy around the world is actually a growth industry. I still expect that the nuclear industry in the U.S. will reverse as the economics of scaling up wind and solar truly become apparent, as new and safer plants are built, and as small 'neighborhood' reactors reach demonstration stage.

Here's the article, and then the confounding statistics from the article.

" With the industry's survival hanging in the balance, nuclear power
supporters and equipment makers have focused on overseas markets where
growing energy demand is fueling power projects of all stripes.
Worldwide, there are 70 nuclear power reactors under construction, with
almost 40 percent of those in China alone. Russia has 11 in the works
and India has plans for 20 new reactors, with 7 underway. Experts warn,
however, that it's hard to tell how many of those plants will be
completed. [And this doesn't mention the plants in the Middle East, where the power could be used to run desalination plants, to help with dwindling water resources. ]

HOWEVER

"A more concerted approach to energy efficiency could lessen the need
for new power plants. Fear of storm-induced power outages and other
grid problems could accelerate a move away from large, centralized power
plants (like nuclear reactors) that supply electricity through
long-distance transmission lines."

Leave it to the Swiss, who have a VERY clean country, to come up with a concept for a mission to start attacking the rapidly escalating problem of space junk.

They've conceived a satellite that will grab defunct satellites and other pieces of large space junk and then proceed to toss the junk Earthward, where it will incinerate (hopefully completely). They plan to start operations in 2018.

This is a great idea that addresses a growing concern - presumably they've got buy-in from space agencies that want to get some of that debris down. But the article doesn't say if that's true, so I am still left to wonder who's going to pay for this space clean-up operation.

(That title is somewhat misleading; they're not going after all 370,000 pieces of junk. They're going after satellites and pieces big enough to grapple and and getting them de-orbited. That way those big things can't collide with anything else, resulting in the generation of many small uncatchable pieces of space junk that can nonetheless put a hurting on working pieces of space hardware if they collide with such.)

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

"Republicans are threatening to shut down the federal government —
and perhaps even refuse to let the Treasury pay its creditors — in a
desperate, last-ditch attempt to keep millions of Americans from getting
health insurance."

Illustrative excerpts:The shift in the race has come .htmllmost exclusively from female
voters, who prefer McAuliffe by a 24-point margin over Cuccinelli. The
candidates were effectively tied among women in a Washington Post poll
in May.

The challenge for Cuccinelli is stark: Nearly half of all voters view
him unfavorably, and they trust his opponent as much as or more than the
Republican on every major issue in the race, according to the poll.

Cuccinelli
has accused McAuliffe and other Democrats of waging a war on coal and
working-class Virginians, but he trails by nine points among voters who
were asked whom they trust more on energy and the environment.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Turns out that soot from the early industrial revolution has been tabbed as one of the main reasons (if not the main reason) that glaciers in the Alps started melting and receding in the 1850s. This was prior to the generally-accepted end of the Little Ice Age, and also prior to a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions and greenhouse gas atmospheric concentrations, which has since, over decades, led to increased melting, which is likely the major cause of glacier shrinkage now.

Which all goes to show that the climate is a multi-faceted system, and changing any factors can affect other factors downstream. In this case, the glacial meltwater streams downstream.

NASA's Deep Impact mission was ambitious, risky, and hugely successful. And it officially just ended due to a communications and maneuvering failure. So below is a "greatest hits" (the knowledgeable NASA followers should chuckle at that) summary of the Deep Impact mission.

Besotted? Yes, that can occur in justa moment's glance -- a quick appraisal whichshall truly not appease my common lust,but which allows me chance to scratch an itch
that happens with predictable recurr-ence ev'ry time my eyes encounter graceand supple svelteness. So I am not pure --I have not claimed I was -- so commonplaceis my infection that the simple means
to soothe it can be found quite easily,but now with whom I wish it could. The scenesthat I envision rise as eagerlyas my emboldened self, and yet they passwhen I espy another lovely lass.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Apparently this will be temporary, but Japan is shutting down their one operating nuclear reactor. I of course think that's short-sighted, and apparently some of the Japanese pols do too, but Japan will be nuclear-energy-free again for awhile.

Note this, from the article: "But utilities have called for the swift restart of reactors to ensure stable electricity supplies. "In order to maintain stable supplies, we believe it is necessary for
nuclear to play its role" as a key energy source, Makoto Yagi, chairman
of the Federation of Electric Power Companies in Japan, said Friday. He is also the president of Kansai Electric."

I accidentally happened upon this page with numerous pictures of Madalina Ghenea. She's not nude in any of them (though in a couple she's quite close). These pictures just celebrate the beauty of one of the world's great international beauties (whom I have praised before).

I've seen several of these before, but that's OK, she's uniquely beautiful in all of them. (Oh, there's also a couple of videos.) She's got an unbelievably great body, but she also has a great smile (which she flashes when she's not trying to be incredibly sensuous, which she does well too). If you choose to scroll through them, not that I'm particularly partial to the cute blue polka-dot number.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

A really cool-looking satellite named GOCE has finished its mission measuring gravity and ocean circulation (which is what it's named for, the Gravity and Ocean Circulation Explorer) is going to re-enter and burn up in Earth's atmosphere. But not all of it will burn up. Some of it will survive to hit the surface. And they don't know where.

Yeah, this is really what the GOCE satellite looks like

Now, this is not at all to detract from the success of the mission, which by all accounts was quite successful. No, it's just about space debris and the need to have controlled re-entries so a piece of this wondrous, gorgeous satellite doesn't end up a steaming mass of metal on my living room rug after burning a hole through my f*cking roof.

Sheesh. Well, according to the article, they know now to try and make it so these things don't have controlled re-entries, and there's even an international agreement to do so, but when GOCE was launched, they didn't have such an agreement.

Oh well. GOCE measured gravity, and very soon it will prove that gravity still works.

Yes, those who deny the climate is changing due to the activities of humans (predominantly) do all of these things. My favorite is number 2, because it's technical and it also refutes a recently highly-circulated release of nonsense from Roy Spencer:

So here's a big massive quote, with big massive quotation marks. I underlined a couple of points worth special noting.

"Stage 2: Deny we're the cause
Once people move beyond denying that the problem exists, they often
move to the next stage, denying that we're responsible. John Christy
and Roy Spencer took this approach by disputing the accuracy of global
climate models in The Daily Mail and The Christian Post, respectively.
Spencer was quite explicit about this:

...we deny "that most [current climate change] is human-caused, and that it is a threat to future generations that must be addressed by the global community."

Christy
and Spencer made their case by comparing the outputs of 73 climate
models to satellite temperature measurements, and showing that the
models seemed to predict more warming than has been observed. But the
comparison was not of surface temperatures, or of the lowermost layer of
the atmosphere, or even any measurement global average temperatures.
They specifically looked at measurements of the temperature of the
middle troposphere (TMT) in the tropics.

There's certainly nothing
wrong with examining this particular subset of temperature data, but
it's a bit of an odd choice on the face of it. The real problem lies in
the fact that satellite measurements of TMT are highly uncertain. In
fact, estimates of the TMT trend by different scientific groups vary wildly, despite using the same raw satellite data.

Another problem is that the stratosphere (the layer of the atmosphere above the troposphere) is cooling – an expected consequence of the increased greenhouse effect.
But some of the cooling stratosphere bleeds into the TMT data, leading
to another cool bias. While there is a discrepancy between model
simulations and measurements of tropical troposphere temperatures, it's
not clear how much (if any) is due to the models being wrong, and how
much is due to errors in the measurements. As a U.S. Climate Change Science Program report co-authored by John Christy concluded,

"This
difference between models and observations may arise from errors that
are common to all models, from errors in the observational data sets, or
from a combination of these factors. The second explanation is favored,
but the issue is still open."

However, in mainstream
media interviews and editorials, Christy and Spencer always fail to
mention the possibility that the problem could lie more in the
measurements than the models, which frankly is intellectually dishonest.
Additionally, climate models have done very well in projecting long-term global surface temperature changes."

Sunday, September 15, 2013

1. The Republicans in Congress are quashing the idea of having a national science laureate who would go around the country inspiring the next generation about the wonders of science. The reason? Concerns that he might say something real about climate change.

The bill was never discussed in any committee, however, and Larry Hart
of the American Conservative Union hit the roof when he saw it on the
House calendar for the next day. (The Washington, D.C.-based group calls
itself “the oldest and largest grassroots conservative organization in
the nation.”) In a letter to other conservative organizations and every
House member, Hart said the bill would give President Barack Obama the
opportunity to appoint someone “who will share his view that science
should serve political ends, on such issues as climate change and
regulation of greenhouse gases.”

(Can I just slap Larry Hart upside de head?)

Oh, and by the way, the bill had bipartisan support. And was backed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

A bipartisan group of Congressional lawmakers wants the United States to have a Science Laureate. Senators Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Representatives Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) yesterday introduced legislation that would empower the president to select a "nationally renowned expert" who would "travel around the country to inspire future scientists," according to a statement released by Hirono's office.

Conservative Republicans make me sick. And most of them are ignorant anti-science dweebs.

2. A bipartisan (there's that strange word again) energy efficiency bill is getting held up by Congressional shenanigans related to the pipe dream of stopping Obamacare.

In a floor speech on Wednesday, Portman [ a Republican??!!] noted that the bill has the
support of 260 businesses, trade groups and non-governmental
organizations, from right-leaning groups like the National Association
of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce and the Christian Coalition to
the Sierra Club. The White House also issued a statement on Wednesday
saying it supports the bill. The legislation "makes good environmental sense," Portman said. "I
think it makes good energy sense. And I think it makes good economic
sense, too."

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) sought to introduce an amendment to the bill
that would delay the implementation of health care reform's individual
mandate for one year. "I have nothing against this bill and the
provisions of it," said Vitter. "I support the vast majority of the
provisions of this bill."

"I'm not blocking anything," said Vitter. "I'm proposing making amendments."

and also

Senate Republicans pledged Wednesday night [September 11] to use the energy efficiency
bill to force a vote on an unrelated measure that would delay the
implementation of health care reform. Politico reports
that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has filed an amendment
that seeks to delay the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate for
people to obtain health insurance. He is expected to give a floor speech
on it Thursday morning.

Get me anti-emetics, quick!! Using a good bill to try and push their pipe dream is UGLY. (And bad for the country, too.)

Now, I read a lot of science fiction when I had time and when I was younger. I had a sudden thought about this journey, given that Sarah is truly likely to be the most artistically gifted person ever to fly in space (when and if she gets there). And that made me think of one of the best pieces of science fiction ever written about the arts and being in orbit.

Thus, my thought was, if during Sarah's journey in space we suddenly encounter a swarm of red fireflies in a balloon, and if there is someone like Charlie Armstead supporting Sarah's artistic endeavors, then hopefully she has her StarSong ready. Because if this happens, remember that the ISS might be commanded by someone who is ultimately a military man, or who might be called on to act as one. So under those unlikely circumstances, we might hear something said like this:

"MISTER ARMSTEAD! This is a military vessel. We are facing more than fifty intelligent beings who appeared out of hyperspace near here twenty minutes ago, beings who therefore use a drive beyond my conception with no visible parts. If it makes you feel any better that I am aware that I have a passenger aboard of greater intrinsic value to my species than this ship and everyone else aboard her, and if it is any comfort to you that this knowledge already provides a distraction I need like an auxiliary anus, and I can no more leave this orbit than I can grow horns. Now, will you get off this bridge or will you be dragged?" (by Spider Robinson, in the Hugo Award winning novella Stardance)

Saturday, September 14, 2013

By beating Mexico 2-0 and getting some help from Panama, who tied Honduras, the U.S. men's national soccer team qualified for the World Cup next year in Brazil.

The team didn't have a lot of drama associated with this qualifying run, except for the snow job they pulled on Costa Rica during their home game in Denver. Costa Rica got revenge a few days ago with a great home win (and key U.S. midfielder Michael Bradley out after tweaking an ankle on loose turf just before the game).

Mexico has never been a particularly easy game for the U.S. - they had a long history of losing to Mexico, particularly under important circumstances. After the disappointing game against Costa Rica, they had to play well. And they did, apparently. Eddie Johnson can SKY for a header, that's very clear.

I don't know why I worry about or follow the Washington Mystics, the area's WNBA team. I'm not even a great fan of pro baskeball. It might be because they have a very dedicated fan base, and the team has been consistently inconsistent. Maybe it's because they always seem to have a couple of hard-working players who aren't rewarded much for their hard work.

For whatever reason, I'm happy that they made the playoffs this year. Given the star power elsewhere in the WNBA - Taurasi, Parker, Moore, Delle Donne, Catchings, Griner, McCoughtry are a few of them - I don't expect them to go real far in the playoffs. But the WNBA's short playoff format sometimes creates a surprise. So good luck to them. I won't lose much sleep if they go out early, but I will be happy for them if they manage to go far.

Only three current Mystics — Monique Currie, Crystal Langhorne and Matee Ajavon — were with the team for its last playoff appearance in 2010. Thibault reshaped the rest of the roster when he arrived as both the coach and general manager, adding much needed stability in the back court with starting point guard Ivory Latta and fortifying the interior with Kia Vaughn and Michelle Snow. He also drafted off-guard Tayler Hill and center Emma Meesseman.

Obviously everyone should have a chance to find their happiness. But somehow I wished that Zoe Saldana had always stayed available. (She's got a great attitude about sex, as I noted here. And also here.) However, apparently she took the next step in an under-the-radar relationship to a fortunate partner. Very fortunate.

I dreamed of her again last night, engrasped,enamored as so many times before --unchanging just as she was when I gaspedin first-time recognition of the store
of talents she possessed. They are the samein simple basic functionalityas all the others of her sex, but fameaccrued when hers were offered just to me(as well as all the other men who looked).And thus envisioned, she was mine, alone,
repeatedly and willingly, so hooked and mastered by the loveliness I ownwithin my hands and eyes that I returnin thought and act each time for her I yearn.

According to this Wikipedia article, the first performance of Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" was on March 12, 1943, perhaps by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. I wonder how it was received and reviewed. It is such a stirring, uplifting piece, the audience had to be moved.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Just found out about this (even though I eat a lot of Natural Valley granola bars). If you've heard of Google StreetView, this is Nature Valley TrailView. They put cameras on backpacks and hiked some of America's most scenic trails. This is really a great idea especially for lots of us who probably won't hike a lot of miles on these trails. Click and enjoy!

Most of these plans are unlikely to secede (let alone succeede). But I wondered how many states we'd end up with if all of the secessionist movements worked. Probably 60 or so. And if it worked for the conservatives, then I'd bet that some liberal enclaves in conservative states (say Denver and its suburban areas in Colorado, as an example) would want to do it too.

Shades of "The Postman".

Of course this is unlikely to happen. But when you have gun-totin' rootin'-tootin' Tea Partyists getting ready to bear up their arms to resist an unjust Presidency (which is just about exactly what some of them have said) it isn't completely impossible.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

He goes by the pseudonym Tamino, and by his real name he's an accomplished statistician. As Tamino, he specializes in skewering the pseudoscientific natterings of climate change skeptics, skillfully showing how bad they are at doing what they purport to be doing. At other times, he skillfully defends the climate change position with accurate statistical arguments.

One of the more vexatious current climate conditions is the observed slowing down of the rate of warming over the past 15 or 16 years or so. Skeptics are exploiting this trend, clumsily ignoring all of the other evidence, such as hundreds of natural phenological trends responding to warming, summer Arctic sea ice extent setting minimum records repeatedly (and clearly declining trends in thickness/volume), and even such obvious things as the first decade of this century being the warmest ever, and the year 2010 being the warmest year ever, aided by a modest El Niño.

But that El Niño condition (or lack of it) is also apparently responsible for the observed slowdown in the warming trend. (Nature paper by Kosaka and Xie.) And if you want to understand that, Tamino has provided an absolutely excellent explication of it.

To really get how good this is, read the whole thing (including the illustrations). I've grabbed two paragraphs that state some basic conclusions pretty well. I've had to grab one figure, too.

1.

"The bottom line is that those who claim that global warming has
“stopped” or even “paused” are deluding themselves. The phrase “global
warming” refers to climate change, including temperature increase, which
is caused by mankind, and that has continued unabated. In fact, if it weren’t for the continued
warming due to human activity, natural variations (like ENSO) would
have brought about a notable cooling over the last decade or so. But Earth hasn’t cooled during that period, not even at the surface where we
notice it most immediately, and that’s because the man-made component —
global warming — has continued."

2. First the figure:

And the interpretation of it:

"This is, according to the new research, how ENSO has modified
global temperature since 1950. The influence is clear: a pronounced
recent ENSO-induced cooling which has cancelled the continued global
warming due to man-made CO2, leading to the “hiatus” in the increase of global temperature."

OK, got that? There is a current slowdown in the increase in global temperature - and scientists know why. And we will get hit with heat when this influence goes away - and it will. And then the skeptics will be roasted.

The lovely, gorgeous, stunning (take your pick, and there are a lot more adjectives like those that can be applied) Emmanuelle Chriqui
went to Miami Beach a few days ago. And the results are most pleasing
to her fans, of which there are many, of which many are male, and of
which I count myself.

There's even a video. It indicates she swims well, too, despite not wearing goggles and thus carrying her head too high.

Her current boyfriend (who I recently
discovered the name of from the Daily Mail article) is very, very, very,
very, very lucky. And by that I mean lucky.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Most
of the time when I post a "Whatever Happened To...?" article, I've
found something about what happened to them. But in this case, I
haven't. And this goes back to the days of my youth.

There was a beautiful redheaded actress and model named Brooke Mills. She was on some TV shows, did some prison-girl movies (for
which she was actually noted as doing a credible job of acting), and
also posed for Penthouse when Penthouse was still pretty tame. For some
strange reason that I don't recall, I had that particular issue. And
then, in 1977, she did her last acting gig, and disappeared.

Literally ... to the point that there isn't anything else about her anywhere, except for one thing. Read on.

So
I wondered again what happened to Brooke Mills, and I did a little
searching, and I found this Web site. With some images. One of them is
of Brooke Mills. It's the only other thing with Brooke Mills in it
that I've ever found.

Oh yeah, she's nude. But it's art.

(As an aside, Peter Gowland was a famous glamour photographer who dabbled in acting. Do an image search with his name and see what he did and who he shot.)

So I wonder what happened to her. I suspect she did the
normal regular thing of getting married, having kids, and dropping out
of sight from the Hollywood media. And she was, after all, just a
starlet, and they come and go. But still, it seems surprising that
there's nothing on her current where- and do-abouts, anywhere.

So if you're reading this (and I know very few people do), and
you know something about whatever happened to Brooke Mills, tell me.
I'd just like to know.

The honeybee crisis is
real. If you don't believe me, it's the cover story on Time magazine
this week. Now, Time isn't what it used to be, but it's still got its
finger on the pulse of world events. Now, you also have to be a
subscriber to read the whole thing, but I found an article online with a summary. It's not much different than what we've heard before, but
the world (and especially the beekeepers and the scientists) are trying
hard to figure out what's wrong -- and if they can fix the problem.

After Alec and Hilaria Baldwin's baby was born, I predicted that the next notable celeb birth would be Fergie and Josh Duhamel's kid. But as I noted in this post, the next noteworthy debut was the offspring of Michael Buble and Luisana Lopilato, born on August 28. Well, I found out from this article that Fergie and Josh's son (monikered Axl) was born on August 29. So I only missed that prediction by a day.

Obligatorily, I have to note that the Daily Mail suggested the Luisana can motivate herself to lose her baby weight and get back to her normal level of outstanding lusciousness by looking at pictures of herself modelng Ultimo lingerie. Well, I don't know if that will work or not, but it does give me an excuse to link to the article.

My first post of the month was about the somewhat remarkable casting for "Dancing with the Stars" this season. Well, in addition to the cast listed in that first post, I didn't mention that they've also got Bill Nye the Science Guy to supply brainpower, and country comedian Bill Engvall for some laughs.

Took a little while to get to this, but I had to comment on the dress Selena Gomez sported at the MTV Video Music Awards. At first glance, it looks like some of the seams have split, revealing her undergarments. At second glance, this is how it's designed. And she wears it well. She's still nubile, but she's on the edge of marvelously desirable maturity.

Oh yeah, that's a cliche, but in this case, it applied. Steve Lombardozzi of the Washington Nationals made a spin-and-throw play to first base, which was being covered just in time by Nationals pitcher Jordan Zimmerman. The ball got to Zimmerman's glove at the same time that Zimmerman's foot stepped on first base, on step ahead of Cesar Hernandez of the Philadelphia Phillies. I did a screen capture of the video to show how close this was.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Boehner (R-Ohio) has proposed a short-term budget bill
to keep the government open into the new fiscal year with relatively
little fuss. But during a speech in Boise, Idaho, on Monday [August 26], he said
House Republicans will draw a line in the sand over lifting the federal
debt limit, demanding spending “cuts and reforms that are greater than
the increase in the debt limit.”

The thing is - what he's proposing is impossible, so it won't happen. It didn't work before and it won't work again. And it especially won't happen if they make a movement like they're serious about it, and all of a sudden our markets tank and our credit rating takes another hit.

Boehner, is, in fact, predicting this: "...Boehner said, predicting a repeat of the debt-limit fight of 2011, which tanked consumer confidence, along with the GOP’s approval ratings."Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

We are near the annual sea-ice minimum (extent wise) in the Arctic, and I wondered what it looked like from space, considering how thin the ice is. So I made a comparison of sea ice concentration and a real-time real-color view from a cool new NASA Web app called Worldview. What's interesting is that in the areas where the sea ice concentration is being shown as very low (lower than 50%), it looks like areas of the blue ocean are showing through. I also thought that this area of low concentration cutting through the areas of higher concentration could lead to a more rapid decline, but looking at today's image, it looks like there's been some fill. Still, it shows how thin the ice is this time of year. Full of holes - like Swiss cheese, as one scientist said.